Page 1 of With Good Grace
Chapter One
London, June 1852
Olivia Grantley removed her hat and gloves and handed them to her maid.
‘We went to look at the ships, Molly.’ Tom, Olivia’s three-and-a-half-year-old son, hopped from foot to foot, bursting to tell Molly about his afternoon. ‘One sailor said I was a right Jack-tar and he let me ring the ship’s bell.’
‘Well, Master Tom, I dare say he knew what he was talking about.’ Molly, acting as Tom’s nursemaid on Jane’s afternoon off, held out a hand. ‘Come along then, young man. Let’s get you cleaned up. I expect you’re ready for your tea.’
‘Why do I need to be clean to have tea, Molly?’
Olivia laughed, ruffled her son’s unruly mop of curls and left Molly to explain the benefits of cleanliness to her precocious child; a boy who habitually asked questions that were far too advanced for his age. She wandered through to the drawing room, ready for tea herself, still grateful for the moment when Tom caught sight of the colourful array of ships—a combination of sail and steam—lining the London docks or swinging on their anchors waiting to unload their cargos. He was captivated and immediately stopped asking for Gracie.
Like most children, Tom was easily distracted. Even so, Olivia expected at any moment to hear wails of protest coming from the nursery floor when Tom reached it and found that Grace was not there. There were bound to be renewed demands to know where she had gone and why Tom could not have gone with her. She thanked Green when he delivered her tea, took a fortifying sip and steeled herself for the inevitable. But blessed peace prevailed.
Grace was the daughter of Olivia’s good friend Lady Eva Woodstock—as of yesterday, Lady Isaac Arnold. Eva and Grace had lived with Olivia in her Chelsea home since her husband’s demise and Tom and the little girl had become firm friends—hence the distraction of the ships and the anticipated tantrum. Eva had raised a few eyebrows by marrying Isaac almost a year to the day after Isaac had killed her brutal husband in a duel. Since Woodstock had been a criminal, Olivia knew Isaac had saved the hangman additional duties, but that did not prevent society’s elite from gossiping about Eva’s haste to marry Isaac.
Olivia poured herself a second cup of tea, took a bite of the cake she had selected to go with it and sighed at the destructive nature of the gossip machine. She herself was notorious in some people’s eyes, having been falsely accused of her own husband’s murder. There were some who still doubted her innocence, even though the real perpetrators had been found and hanged. For that reason she had offered to stay away from Eva’s wedding. Her presence would not improve Eva’s acceptability in the eyes of the aristocracy’s gatekeepers. But Eva and Isaac refused to exchange their vows without her there to bear witness; and without Jacob Morton, the Earl of Torbay, to act as groomsman.
Jake was the man who had proved Olivia’s innocence and she repaid him by becoming one of his elite vigilantes. Having herself been tried and unjustly convicted by the jury of public opinion, helping to right miscarriages of justice had become a personal crusade. Far too often Jake was called to act on behalf of the government when it needed to distance itself from delicate situations. Jake was also the man who happened to own Olivia’s heart; a damnably annoying situation since she had vowed never to be beholden to any male ever again.
She stirred her tea, conscious of the fact that her spoon tapping against delicate china was the only sound in the quiet drawing room. She had grown accustomed to Eva’s company and would miss it now that the newlyweds had taken up residence in the property they had purchased in Surrey. But Olivia would not be lonely—if loneliness was what she felt—for long. Jake had invited her and Tom to join him on his estate in Torbay for the summer; a rare and coveted invitation. Jake was a very private man and when he quit the capital he turned into a self-proclaimed recluse, seldom craving company.
She had barely seen the man who so fascinated her since helping him to foil a plot by Radicals to overthrow the government two months previously. During the course of that investigation they had finally found comfort in one another’s arms after two years of trying to pretend that the attraction did not exist. He had been travelling the country for the past few weeks at the behest of Thorndike, the Prime Minister’s aide. He had repeatedly assured her, before his almost insultingly fast removal from London and her company, that he did not need her assistance with that particular assignment.
All well and good, Olivia thought belligerently, but it was very ill-mannered of him to love her, at least in the biblical sense—neither of them had actually admitted to being in love—and then leave her with almost indecent haste. If he felt they had made a mistake then he ought to have the courtesy to tell her so. She was quite out of charity with him and furious because the sight of him after what seemed like an eternity had taken her breath away at the wedding yesterday. He was so suave, self-assured, so commanding; so every wretched thing that she most admired in a gentleman. At least his brown eyes had softened whenever he looked at her, implying that he was not as indifferent towards her as his manner in public suggested, which went some small way to salving her damaged pride.
Olivia bared her teeth in an angry smile. She thought that their intimacies in the spring had brought an end to their treading on eggshells around one another. Evidently not. Well, he was not the only one who had an abundance of pride upon which to stand. She and Tom would not make the long journey to Torbay if there was the slightest possibility that he regretted issuing the invitation.
Jake, she knew, was concerned that the enemies he had made during the course of his work for the government would seize upon his connection to Olivia if he permitted it to become public knowledge. Foolish man! Olivia was more than capable of looking out for herself. Jake had taught her to fence, to shoot straight and she had already known how to defend herself with hand-to-hand combat. He had given more than enough of himself to the service of his country. It was beyond time for him to put his own desires first; always assuming, of course, he actually knew what it was that he actually desired.
He was engaged to dine with Olivia that evening and she would have a few direct questions to ask of him.
Thus resolved, Olivia finished her tea and made her way upstairs. She paused at the bottom of the stairs to the nursery floor and listened. Blessed silence still reigned. Either the expedition to the docks had worn Tom out or Jane had returned from her afternoon off and was reading him a story. Olivia would dress for dinner and then go up to find out which.
‘What to wear to seduce an earl…’ she mused, standing in front of her armoire, ‘or at the very least, remind him of what he has been missing these past weeks.’
An hour later, Olivia critically examined her appearance in the full-length glass and was satisfied with the reflection that stared back at her. The sapphire blue silk of her gown perfectly matched the colour of her eyes. It bared her slender shoulders completely, displaying her long neck and delicate chin to their best advantage. Molly had submerged into one of the disapproving moods that frequently beset her since she started walking out with a humourless curate who appeared to consider any activity that was the slightest bit pleasurable also to be sinful. She had spitefully pulled Olivia’s stays painfully tight; a petty means of displaying her disapproval at the nature of Olivia’s relationship with Jake. Olivia saw how tiny her waist now appeared and how her breasts had been pushed high against the lace of the gown’s bodice, where it was trimmed with velvet and crystal beads. She suppressed a smile, aware that it had not been Molly’s intention to emphasise Olivia’s attributes, and easily withstood the temptation to thank her.
Molly had piled Olivia’s dark curls into a flattering style, her lips pinched with disapproval as her deft fingers did their work. Olivia barely noticed her maid’s curmudgeonly mood. All she cared about was that her ringlets now danced around her face whenever she moved her head, further emphasising the length of her neck. She was looking her absolute best, and if Jake did not care for the view then she would put him from her mind, make good on her half-formed idea of quitting the capital in favour of a house in the country and forget all about her dark, forbidding earl.
Somehow.
‘Thank you, Molly,’ Olivia said. ‘I am ready early so I shall check on Tom.’
‘He’s fighting to stay awake, madam.’
‘Has he asked for Gracie?’
‘Not in my hearing. Jane came back and took over from me so that I could help you to dress, so I don’t rightly know.’
‘Well, there is only one way to find out.’
Olivia lifted her heavy skirts and made her way cautiously up to the nursery. Jane was sitting beside Tom’s bed, a book open in her lap, but it was immediately obvious that Tom was sound asleep.
‘So adorable!’ she whispered to Jane, bending to gently kiss his brow.
Olivia loved her son with a fierce passion, but never more so than when he was asleep! He was a bundle of curiosity, relentless energy and mischief when he was awake, asking endless questions and, in the fashion of small boys the world over, always managing to get into scrapes. But the sight of him peacefully sleeping, his thick curls tousled on the pillow beneath his head, was another matter. With his thumb jammed into his mouth, the line of freckles decorating his nose stark against his temporarily clean skin and his much-loved Mr Rabbit clutched in one hand, the sight stole Olivia’s breath away.
